The last hurrah, however, may go to Planned Parenthood. Tait Sye, a spokesman for the agency, said Wednesday afternoon that "more than $400,000 from 9,000 donors came in the last 24-hour period." Add that to a $250,000 "Breast Health Emergency Fund" from Texas oil executive Lee Fikes and his wife, Amy, and the group is closing in on the $680,000 it received from Komen in 2011.

But that won't quell the excitement among Komen supporters who oppose Planned Parenthood. Bound4Life's website Wednesday urged continued action:

Komen has received 2,000 email condemning their move to defund PP, only 64 supporting. Contact news@komen.org to thank them."

The deeply conservative Catholic Answers website had been calling for a boycott of Komen since last fall. No word on whether that will now be lifted.

Few seem to recall the scene where Nancy Brinker, founder of the foundation named for her late sister, Susan G. Komen, met with Pope Benedict in 2008 when he blessed a basket of pink ribbons.

Planned Parenthood is a "tarnished brand" said Melinda Delahoyde, president of Care Net, a pregnancy support agency, who formerly headed educational outreach for Americans United for Life.

Delahoyde said Wednesday,

It's under congressional investigation and consequences follow from that.

She cheered Komen's move to separate the relationship because, "Komen's mission is one that affects every woman... We fully endorse and applaud that mission." Delahoyde says the monies that once went to Planned Parenthood will move now to other groups and "women will continue to be helped."

At the core of religious groups' contention is that money is fungible.

Even if every cent donated by a church-sponsored walk or a Bible sale went to breast cancer screening, the argument went, that donation freed Planned Parenthood to spend more of the funds it raised -- privately or from taxpayers -- on abortion.

When LifeWay Christian Resources came out with a pink Bible for breast Cancer awareness, pledging to raise at least $25,000 for Komen, Bound4Life branded it as "Bibles for abortion," according to Bob Smietana at The Tennessean.

LifeWay announced in October it would recall the Bibles, although some were still on shelves in Christian bookstores. One of the first statements thanking Komen for tanking Planned Parenthood funds came from Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay, husband of a Breast cancer survivor.

Rainer said Wednesday, that even though the original research behind the Bible donation plan included assurances from Komen that no funding would go toward abortions offered by Planned Parenthood,

We ultimately decided we didn't want to be affiliated with this, even indirectly.

Now, said Rainer, as thousands of pink Bibles are piling up in the publisher's warehouse, "we will reconsider what we will do with them."

This same concern about "cooperation in evil" has driven Catholic actions to pressure Planned Parenthood's funding sources, private and public.

Based only on the idea that Komen one day might support embryonic stem cell research, forbidden by Catholic views on life, Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, told schools in his diocese last year not to join Komen fund-raising efforts.

Blair said in a letter to the diocese:

In order to avoid even the possibility of cooperation in morally unacceptable activities... fundraising activities carried out under Catholic auspices, including our schools, should be channeled" elsewhere.

Andrea Radera, spokesperson for the national foundation in Dallas, told Catholic News Service at that time that they are "very clear that we do not fund embryonic stem cell research." However, Radera also added, "We do not want to preclude that possibility, so we do not shut that door."

According to the liberal Catholic weekly, National Catholic Reporter, in October, a dozen Catholic dioceses took similar action, urging Catholic organizations not to support Komen, although individuals were still free to choose to march with the pink forces.

Other Catholic conferences that took the same stance (and offered local breast cancer screening groups as alternatives for support) included bishops in St. Louis; Lafayette-in-Indiana, Ind.; Charleston, S.C.; Phoenix; and Baltimore, according to NCR.

To date, it has given $17.5 million in grants to a Catholic Charities, Catholic hospital, health center, multicultural center, medical centers and Georgetown University in Washington.

Meanwhile, the fight against Planned Parenthood is just gathering steam as faith-based groups turn to Congress.

Last year the defunding amendment cleared the House but died in the Senate. However, since then, CT writes, 11 states eliminated or decreased funding to Planned Parenthood.

According to Christianity Today's lead story Wednesday, the next big fight is a rematch of the 2011 effort to defund Planned Parenthood -- again, based on the line that funding is fungible.

The $1 billion-a-year organization said in its most recent annual report that it performed 329,445 abortions in 2010. $487 million, 46 percent of its revenue, came from government health service grants and reimbursements. The organization cannot legally use taxpayer dollars for an abortion. But, pro-life activists allege, the agency does not segregate funds as it should, effectively resulting in taxpayer support for abortion.

The impact was ...

crippling… Twelve Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas closed this summer after the state legislature eliminated $58 million from Planned Parenthood over the next two years. Six of Minnesota's twenty-four clinics closed after Congress cut funds to Title X. Five more in central Indiana closed.

Not all faith voices were arrayed against Planned Parenthood, however.

Marcie Natan, president of Haddassah, the Women's Zionist Organization, said Wednesday,

As a two-time winner in the battle against breast cancer myself, as a supporter of both Komen and Planned Parenthood, and as an advocate for reproductive freedom, I am disappointed... There is no time to waste in our commitment to the fundamental issues of women's health, breast cancer and a woman's right to choose.

and Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, said

As Catholics, we are called by our faith to show solidarity with and compassion for the poor... In addition, we believe in the primacy of individual conscience in matters of moral decision making... Komen should be ashamed of itself.

DO YOU THINK... Planned Parenthood will survive another round of attacks? Should it? Does the agency's work clash with your beliefs on your life choices?

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About Cathy Lynn Grossman

Cathy Lynn Grossman is too fidgety to meditate. But talking about visions and values, faith and ethics lights her up. Join in at Faith & Reason. More about Cathy.